WERNER HERZOG

Facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes their inherent truth seem unbelievable.

I think psychology and self-reflection is one of the major catastrophes of the twentieth century.

You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Mexicans have a very nice word for it: pura vida. It doesn't mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life. And that's what makes young people more into a filmmaker than academia.

I know whenever it comes to be really dysfunctional and vile and base and hostile on screen, I'm good at that!

I think it is a quest of literature throughout the ages to describe the human condition.

I live my life outside of the glitz and glamour of the red carpet events, and so you'll never see me there. I'm never at parties.

Film should be looked at straight on; it is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.

You should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.

You should bear in mind that almost all my documentaries are feature films in disguise.

I'm simply not afraid. It's not in my dictionary of behaviour.

I despise formal restaurants. I find all of that formality to be very base and vile. I would much rather eat potato chips on the sidewalk.

Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.

I prefer to be alive, so I'm cautious about taking risks.

I'm a very professional man. I'm not out for the experience of adventure.

Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life.

The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.

I think the worst that can happen in filmmaking is if you're working with a storyboard. That kills all intuition, all fantasy, all creativity.

Sometimes bad luck hits you like in an ancient Greek tragedy, and it's not your own making. When you have a plane crash, it's not your fault.

I have a great map of the Tibesti Mountains in the southern Sahara or Northern Chad. It's a dream of mine to go there, but it's such a volatile area, you have to be prudent.

If an actor knows how to milk a cow, I always know it will not be difficult to be in business with him.

Technology has a great advantage in that we are capable of creating dinosaurs and show them on the screen even though they are extinct 65 million years. All of a sudden, we have a fantastic tool that is as good as dreams are.

I do other sorts of things. I act in other people's movies. I direct operas. I write books.

I never have searched for a subject. They always just come along. They never come by way of decision-making. They just haunt me. I can't get rid of them. I did not invite them.

Why go to Antarctica, why do a film like 'Grizzly Man'? It's the sheer joy of storytelling - it's the urge.

If you do not have an absolutely clear vision of something, where you can follow the light to the end of the tunnel, then it doesn't matter whether you're bold or cowardly, or whether you're stupid or intelligent. Doesn't get you anywhere.